It's Very Hot In Here
by Tom
Summary: OK, why did Daemon REALLY want to take over Mainframe, and what could her dreaded "secret plan" entail? Read & Review people, it's funny. I think.


It's Very Hot in Here

The air inside the Supercomputer was chill with the impending doom of Daemon's presence, the frigid wind making Mike the TV shiver in spite of the burning infection that raged through his very code, wishing for a nano that he was back in Mainframe where the presence of the supervirus didn't make things quite so _cold_. Well, more accurately it was the Supercomputer's superior air conditioning, but he wished that Daemon could have at least asked Turbo and the other Guardians how to turn the deleted thing off before she'd reduced them to mindless slaves. 

"Deacon!" Daemon barked, her words clipped short and accented because of her rapidly chattering teeth. "Yes, my lady?" Deacon asked, his staff making a hollow _tap-tap-tap_ noise on the floor that Mike found extremely annoying- it only served to emphasize the freezing temperature here in the Grand Hall. "'Ave you discovered yet 'ow to turn off ze air conditioning?" Daemon asked, her voice slurred again by the near-zero temperature. "No, my lady," Deacon replied, his eyes downcast. "I have failed you." "Deacon-1" she said. After reciting a rather mysterious and complicated line of code, Deacon's face widened in surprise as his solid form was reduced to a state of pure energy- which Daemon readily absorbed. 

Her upturned face glowed for a moment as she smiled- then fell back to chattering as she turned to regard Mike, who was silent and obviously amazed by her vast viral powers. Beat. "Awwww, c'mon!" Mike wailed, his screen tuned to the weather report- which, coincidentally, predicted temperatures in the near zero range for the next _week_ (Now imagine how long that is in Reboot time), plunging by nightfall of course. Daemon looked at him quizzically. "C'mon!" Mike said again, gesticulating wildly for emphasis. "That guy was wearing a fur coat- a _fur coat_, you get that? You could at least have taken it off before you deleted that guy! You could have given it to _me_," the TV whined pathetically, falling to the floor- then realizing that this wasn't a very good idea as the freezing surface bonded fast with his skin. 

He looked up at the supervirus in abject misery. "Was it warm?" he asked, a hint of jealousy in his voice. "Like a summer day on the beach in Tahiti," the virus affirmed, "But only for a nano." Both faces dropped once again. _The cold air must really be affecting Daemon_, he thought. _Her skin's even turning purple!_ Turbo walked up, at the head of a party of infected Guardians. "We have tried 'an failed to find the controls for the air-conditionin' units, mah lady," Turbo said. He pulled off his helmet, revealing himself to be in even worse shape than Daemon. The cold-induced accent was going full force, and his skin had even turned a sort of bluish-green! 

"Zis is why we must take over Mainframe," Daemon said, addressing now the assembled Guardians. "Zey are the only known system entirely without air-conditioning- and thus, ze only place where we can get warm." The Guardians mumbled their assent, knees knocking as the air vent turned on them full blast. "Ma'am?" One of the Guardians asked, raising a trembling hand- trembling, not from the virus's sheer power, but from the incredible cold, as it turned out. "What about System Freon? Our scouts haven't returned from there yet." The entire assembly cringed as Daemon blasted the Guardian where he stood, then crowded in close to get what warmth there was from his pathetic flaming remains. "Idiot!" Daemon shouted. 

System Freon had been a colossal mistake, as everyone knew. That system actually _provided _ the coolant for all the other systems; its people had died out long ago. They'd lost 14 infected Guardians before they'd been able to pull back. Each system in turn had switched its air conditioning to "Maximum" as its final dying act when Daemon's hordes had come through, and now Mainframe was their ultimate target- having no air conditioning units of its own, it could not possibly thwart them in their desperate struggle to stay warm. 

"Move it guys!" Turbo whispered, shoving some infected Guardians out of the way to get close to the dead man's flaming body. "Ah'm Prime Guardian, after all!" "Which doesn't count for much, these days," someone else whispered back. "Sir," one of the men said, "Isn't it kind of _sick_, clustering around poor Joe's body like that?" "Private," Turbo responded with a malevolent glare, "Joe drew the short straw, so he got flamed to allow the rest of us a little extra warmth. _Do you have a problem with that?!_" "N-n-no, sir," the freezing man chattered, drawing back. Mike tugged on Daemon's sleeve. 

"But how are you going to get into Mainframe?" he asked plaintively. "Besides the firewall, they've got a virus, hacker, two Guardians, a web surfer, some pirates, and a host of other unkillable 'main characters' working for them... how do you expect to win?" "Oh, I 'ave my ways," Daemon said, smiling weakly through the bitter chill. "Come with me," she said, beckoning, "I 'ave made you a companion..." 

            Dot groaned as she surveyed the scene on the main monitor in the War Room. Traffic was backed up on Baudway, the Core was close to meltdown, and Phong's cocoa had boiled away- all because of this deleted heat wave. "Can _anyone _find the controls for the FAQing heater?!" Dot bellowed, wiping buckets of sweat off her brow with each passing nano (literally, buckets; each sprite in the control room carried one with them to avoid a flood in Mainframe rivaling that of the Old Testament. The Data Sea had already risen 12 feet). She glared daggers at Mouse, watching as the hacker threw away another useless sweat-soaked keyboard in disgust. 

"Sorry, Sugah," the hacker said, shrugging. "Ah forgot the codes to the firewall- otherwise I'd drop it in a second!" "We've got to let Daemon through!" Dot wailed. "The alternative is to live with this deleted heat_ forever!_  Whenever she infects a system, at least it stays cool!" The only thing that prevented her from killing Mouse was the fact that the hacker was possibly the _only_ one who could ever crack the firewall's complex coding. The day could not get any worse... 

Suddenly there was a flash on the main monitor. Dot felt a surge of hope. Was it Daemon, at last? The glow faded to show Mike and Michelle, his new, companion, _female_ TV, standing in the middle of Baudway holding hands and singing at the top of their lungs. It doesn't matter how they got past the firewall and all, they just _did_, OK? Mike's voice was nearly deafening in tone thanks to his newly acquired digital megabass THX system. "Buy our brand new gen-you-wine BUCKET-O-NOTHING!" The _large-screen_ TVs shouted, in pure ecstasy now that they could chant their ads together to the public at large. "JUST NINETY-NINE, NINETY-NINE, NINETY-NINE..." 

Everybody in the entire net committed suicide. THE END

A/N: If you were looking for some kind of spectacular fic now that I'm back, writing as myself again, well, you're outta luck. It's coming, don't worry! In the meantime, though, you can review this shorter, slightly stupid substitute if you like. That's why I wrote it, after all. So, go on *brandishes cattle prod* Review, people!! -Tom


End file.
